Search for Israeli Dead Soldiers Expected to Take Many Weeks

January 28, 1974

TEL AVIV (Jan. 27)

The operation of locating, collecting and identifying the bodies of Israeli soldiers killed during the Yom Kippur War in areas now held by Egyptians will take many weeks. Till now–after five days of search–only 17 bodies were found and returned to Israel for identification and burial. There are an estimated 350 bodies in the area of the Egyptian Second Army in the northern Sinai. Chief Army Chaplain, Rabbi Mordechai Firon, is heading this operation in which crews of the army chaplainship and other soldiers are crisscrossing the areas where a search was permitted.

Funeral services will be held tomorrow at the military cemetery of Kiryat Shaul near Tel Aviv for Air Force pilot Maoz Porez who was killed during the first days of the war by Egyptian antiaircraft fire. In 1968 he was a first officer in the El Al plane that was hijacking to Algeria–the first of the hijackings in the Israeli-Arab war. The body of Mr. Porez was discovered recently and identified.